Casey Anthony walks to a SUV with her lawyer Jose Baez after her release from the Orange County Jail in Orlando, Fla., early Sunday. (JOHN RAOUX/ASSOCIATED PRESS)Casey Anthony left a Florida jail Sunday evening after being acquitted of charges that she murdered her daughter, Caylee, and serving a shortened sentence for lying to police.

One of Anthony’s attorneys, Cheney Mason, told the “Today” show Monday that Anthony is “safe,” but would not release details about her whereabouts.

Several outlets, including “Today,” have reported that Anthony may have boarded a private jet to Columbus, Ohio. But a flight manifest hasn’t been released and this information has not been confirmed.

MediaTakeOut.com has purportedly located Anthony in Columbus. Editor Fred Mwangaguhunga said in an e-mail to The Washington Post that the site was prepared to report her address, but the decision was made not to release the “exact address” after they were made aware that it would put her “in immediate danger.”

On Facebook, there are several Facebook groups with a variation of the title, “Kill Casey Anthony.” A member of one of the larger groups posted this message: “Ladies and Gentlemen, Casey Anthony is now OUT OF JAIL. Here’s what I have to say to that: “What we wish would happen is for a hard target search of every gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse, and dog house in EVERY area, EVERY state, city, and town and country. Your killer’s NAME — is MS. Casey Anthony …. she’s out …. let the countdown begin!”

There’s also a closed group called “Casey Anthony Hunters.”

A Pennsylvania man named Casey Anthony said he had been harassed because of his name and George Anthony told BlogPost he had received death threats.

As for Anthony herself, it is not clear when and if the 25-year-old will ever speak publicly about the case. Several book publishers have expressed interest in the story, according to USA Today.

(Reuters) – An attorney for Casey Anthony would not confirm on Monday whether his client boarded a plane after her swift weekend exit from jail but said “elaborate plans” were required to keep her safe.

Anthony’s whereabouts have been a closely guarded secret since her release early Sunday after nearly three years in custody on charges connected to the 2008 death of her 2-year-old daughter Caylee.

A Florida jury acquitted Anthony, 25, on July 5 of killing Caylee but convicted her of lying to detectives during the search for the then-missing child. Caylee’s remains were found in December 2008 in woods near the Anthony family home.

Casey Anthony left the Orlando jail just after midnight on Sunday, escorted by attorney Jose Baez and guards wearing bullet-proof vests and carrying rifles.

She stepped into a waiting SUV and quickly eluded the helicopters, media and angry public gathered to witness her anticipated departure.

Her attorneys have been mum about where Anthony went.

“I will not confirm if she boarded a plane or flew on her own,” defense attorney Cheney Mason told NBC’s Today show on Monday.

“She’s gone, she’s safe and elaborate plans had to be made to keep the people away from her.”

Mason said life will be difficult for Anthony “as long as there are so many people of the lynch mob mentality and those willing to deny the fact that the jury found her not guilty (of murder).”

He said Anthony continues to deal with the loss of her child and must adjust psychologically to her newfound freedom.

“In Miss Anthony’s case, it’s going to be even more of an adjustment because she is coming out vilified virtually universally, not just in the Central Florida area but across the country, if not the world,” Anthony’s civil lawyer Charles Greene told the Central Florida News 13 channel.

Greene represents Anthony, who left jail with the $537.68 remaining in her inmate account, in several lawsuits.

A non-profit group seeks to recoup more than $100,000 spent on the search for Caylee, and a Florida woman has accused Anthony of defaming her by claiming a nanny of the same name kidnapped the toddler.

On Friday, a man named David Badali sued Anthony to recover the expenses he incurred as a diver who participated in the search for Caylee.

Attorneys for Anthony and her parents did not return calls from Reuters on Monday morning.

TruTV has started a story of the play by play of the Anthony case. Little Caylee Anthony, only 2 years old, vanished one day in Florida and no one called to report her missing for over a month. This is page one & two, you can read it for yourself on the TruTV.com’s website, and follow it as the story continues to be documented and translated into the story type re-writing they do, triple checking their facts before publishing them. It helps us see a more explanatory angle from the whole case.

Caylee Anthony

Missing

Caylee (right) with her mother Casey
Anthony

ORLANDO, Fla. — Casey Anthony waited at least a month before reporting that her daughter Caylee, 2, was missing. And even then, it wasn’t Casey who called the Sheriff’s Office to report that the toddler had been abducted. It was Casey’s mother, Cynthia Anthony.

At 8:44 p.m. on July 15, 2008, Cindy Anthony called Orange County 911. After initially reporting that she wanted her 22-year-old daughter arrested for stealing her car, Cindy told the dispatcher, “I have a 3-year-old that’s missing for a month.” Caylee was then three weeks shy of her third birthday.

The dispatcher sounded shocked when she asked if Cindy had reported the missing baby.

“I’m trying to do that now, ma’am,” Cindy said. She explained to the dispatcher that her daughter had stolen her car and some money and had disappeared four weeks ago. “She’s been missing for a month,” Cindy said. “I found her, but I can’t find my granddaughter.”

Caylee (center) with her grandparents
George and Cynthia Anthony.

The dispatcher said she was sending a sheriff’s unit to the Anthony’s house on Hopespring Drive, just outside the city limits of Orlando.

An hour later, Cindy called 911 again. This time she sounded panicked. “There’s something wrong,” she told the dispatcher. “I found my daughter’s car today. It smells like there’s been a dead body in the damn car.” Cindy said she had not seen her granddaughter since the middle of June.

The dispatcher asked to speak to Caylee’s mother. Casey got on the line. “My daughter’s been missing for 31 days,” she said. “I know who has her. I’ve tried to contact her.” Casey told the dispatcher she got a call from Caylee earlier that day, but the call only lasted a minute before someone hung up the phone. When she tried to call the number back, Casey said, it was out of service.

Casey claimed her nanny, a woman she identified as Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, whom she said had been babysitting Caylee for nearly two years, had kidnapped the little girl.

“Why are you calling now?” the incredulous dispatcher asked. “Why didn’t you call 31 days ago?”

“I’ve been looking for her and going through other resources to try to find her, which was stupid,” Casey said.

From the beginning, something about the story didn’t sound right. A young mother waiting an entire month to report that her daughter, not quite 3 years old, had been kidnapped? Soon, though, the story would take an even more sinister turn and would capture the attention of the nation.

After Orange County sheriff’s deputies arrived at the Anthony house, Casey spun them a truly strange tale. She claimed to have last seen Caylee on June 9, sometime between 9:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m., when she dropped her off at the home of her nanny, Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez, who lived in Apartment 210 of the Sawgrass Apartments on South Conway Road.

Casey Anthony

Zenaida had been babysitting Caylee for nearly two years, according to Casey, and for the last few months she had been dropping Caylee off at the Sawgrass apartment. Before that, Casey had taken her daughter to Zenaida’s mother’s condominium near Michigan Avenue and South Conway Road; and prior to that, to another apartment Zenaida had lived in on North Hillside Drive.

Casey told the detectives she had met Zenaida through a friend named Jeff Hopkins, who used to work with her at Universal Studios. Zenaida used to watch Hopkins’ son, Zachary. In fact, when Zenaida had first started babysitting Caylee, Casey used to drop her off at Jeff Hopkins’ apartment, where Zenaida was also caring for Jeff’s son.

On June 9, after dropping Caylee off with her nanny, Casey went to her office at Universal Studios, where she worked as an event planner. When she returned to Zenaida’s apartment around 5:00 p.m. no one was home. She said she called Zenaida’s cell phone, but the number was out of service.

After waiting around for two hours, Casey went to her new boyfriend’s apartment, which she described as “one of the few places I felt at home.” She lived there for the next month, she said, and spent that time looking for her daughter and avoiding her parents. She said she did not tell her boyfriend that her daughter was missing.

The rest of the story, of course, is here, at least what they’ve done so far. Depending on what happens next, more information could cause them to add an update later on.

TAMARA LUSH, Associated Press

Updated 09:29 a.m., Sunday, July 10, 2011

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Many of the thousands who followed the Casey Anthony trial did not get the guilty verdict they wanted, nor did they learn the truth about what happened to the 2-year-old daughter she was accused of murdering.

And for the public, that may be one of the most frustrating parts of the case: Despite all the speculation and theories, they will never know how or why Caylee Anthony died.

“I think we know as much as we ever will know,” said Beth Hough, a 27-year-old administrative assistant from Chicago who followed the trial. “We don’t know exactly what happened, but if we did, it would help people to finally just move on and to end the story.”

That’s what’s missing: an ending. And because we’re so used to neatly packaged, hour-long TV crime dramas where the bad guy is usually put behind bars, the fact Anthony could be convicted only of lying to police has left people unsatisfied. And they have been vocal about their dismay, turning to Twitter and Facebook to vent their frustration.

So what’s left? Some fuzzy defense claims that little Caylee drowned and that her grandfather tried to make an accident look like a homicide.

“One of the quite healthy and appropriate satisfactions we get out of a well-functioning justice system is the belief that the justice system will give us the best answers to questions,” said Doug Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University.

A little girl ended up dead in the woods near her grandparents’ home with duct tape over her mouth, and her mother didn’t report her disappearance for more than a month. But how did Caylee die?

That’s where it gets complicated.

The defense said Caylee drowned in the family’s swimming pool. Prosecutors couldn’t say how Caylee died because the girl’s body was too decomposed to harvest DNA or other forensic evidence. So the state relied on circumstantial evidence: the trunk of Casey’s car smelled like a dead body to some witnesses; someone did an internet search for chloroform — a chemical that can be used to knock someone unconscious — at the Anthony home; and there was duct tape on Caylee’s skull when it was found six months after she was last seen in June 2008.

“If we don’t know how Caylee died, we can’t assign responsibility for the factors that led to her death. So there’s no justice,” said Maryann Gajos, a 51-year-old mother of two and a sixth-grade reading teacher in Inverness, Fla. “Watching all of these crime shows has spoiled all of us. In TV shows, the coroner always has the answer.”

But in this case, the coroner didn’t have the answer. Dr. Jan Garavaglia told the jury that Caylee had been murdered, but she couldn’t establish exactly how she died from only a skeleton.

And in the life-imitates-TV irony of this case, Garavaglia is also the star of her own reality TV show on Discovery Health Channel called “Dr. G: Medical Examiner,” in which she solves cases through autopsies.

“It’s frustrating that they can’t come up for a definitive reason for this girl dying,” said Sherri Cohen, a self-employed photographer from Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “Archaeologists can tell you about bones that were found thousands of years ago, but they can’t tell you how a 3-year-old girl died three years ago.”

How Casey Anthony acted in the weeks and months after Caylee’s disappearance also contribute to the perception of whether the jury ultimately delivered justice.

“I feel that the way Casey Anthony behaved during the month her baby was ‘missing’ and her lies to the police and others have really frustrated people who want to see justice served,” said Marjorie Stout of Pinellas County, Fla., the same area where the jury was chosen because of the intense publicity in the Orlando area. “Not just for what is perceived to be murdering one’s own child but her lack of concern for Caylee as well.”

Berman, the Ohio State professor, has another theory about why folks are so frustrated: Casey Anthony never spoke. The defense made a strategic decision for Anthony not to testify — a decision that clearly worked in her favor, he said.

“It’s not just that the jury decision came out differently than we had hoped, it’s that the jury decision wasn’t a statement of her innocence. It was a statement of ‘We can’t figure out what happened.’ And in some sense, that’s even more frustrating than if the jury said, ‘We don’t think she did it.'”

That’s only amplified by the circumstances surrounding the case. After all, plenty of people are acquitted at trial because there isn’t enough evidence, said Jennifer Zedalis, a professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. But, she said, “there aren’t a lot of cases where that happens where the victim is a 2-year-old and the mother was out partying when her daughter was missing or dead.”

Published: July 6, 2011

CLEARWATER, Fla. — A juror in the Casey Anthony trial broke her silence on Wednesday and said the jury was emotionally shattered by its own verdict of not guilty.

The juror, Jennifer Ford, a 32-year-old nursing student, said that jurors were “sick to their stomachs” after acquitting Ms. Anthony of murdering her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, ABC News reported.

“I did not say she was innocent,” said Ms. Ford, who was juror No. 3. “I just said there was not enough evidence. If you cannot prove what the crime was, you cannot determine what the punishment should be.”

“I’m still confused,” she added. “I have no idea what happened to that child.”

After issuing the verdict, jurors felt so overwhelmed that they could not speak with reporters, Ms. Ford said.

“We were crying, and not just the women,” she added. “It was emotional, and we weren’t ready. We wanted to do it with integrity and not contribute to the sensationalism of the trial.”

Ms. Ford called the other six women and five men on the jury a “great bunch of people.”

The jurors, from Pinellas County, spent nearly six weeks living out their own brand of isolation in a hotel in Orlando, in Orange County. Publicity in the city had been so pervasive that the judge felt compelled to import a jury from another county. Jurors’ rooms were watched by guards. But, Ms. Ford said, “There was high morale,” adding: “We all joked. We are like a big group of cousins.”

The interview with Ms. Ford came as the television networks jousted on Wednesday for interviews with jurors and lawyers in the case, emphasizing that they would not pay for the interviews.

Networks are known to license photos and videos to woo guests to their shows, a practice that some say amounts to de facto payments for interviews. Sometimes the licensing deals are lined up through brokers or other representatives.

In an interview at her home on Wednesday night, Lynn Ford, Jennifer Ford’s mother, said ABC News did not pay Ms. Ford but treated her and four others to a trip to Disney World. ABC is a unit of the Walt Disney Company.

Earlier Wednesday, a representative of another juror contacted the broadcast news networks, offering an interview contingent on a mid-five-figure fee.

The networks reported being approached by Rick French, a publicist from North Carolina. One network executive said the fee being sought was $50,000. Mr. French did not return phone calls Wednesday afternoon.

NBC’s “Today” show and ABC’s “The View” each interviewed Jeff Ashton, the 30-year veteran prosecutor in the case. He said on “The View” that he was “shocked” by the not-guilty verdict because jury deliberations were so swift and seamless.

“I think ultimately it came down to the evidence,” he said. “I think ultimately it came down to cause of death.”

Ms. Anthony, 25, who was also found not guilty of aggravated manslaughter and felony child abuse, will be sentenced Thursday morning for lesser crimes. The jury found her guilty of four counts of lying to police investigators, which carries a maximum sentence of a year in prison for each count.

But because Ms. Anthony has served more than two and a half years in jail, mostly in isolation, she will probably be sentenced to time served by Judge Belvin Perry Jr. and walk free from the Orlando courthouse.

Where Ms. Anthony will go next and whether she will ultimately publish her own account are the next big questions occupying those who closely watched the three-year case.

Prosecutors argued that Ms. Anthony killed her child to be free of the obligations of motherhood, preferring instead a carefree life of boyfriends and bars. They said she dosed Caylee with chloroform, suffocated her with duct tape and dumped her body in the woods.

But medical examiners could never determine how and when Caylee died because her remains were nothing but bones when found. Prosecutors also had no solid physical evidence or witnesses tying Ms. Anthony to the crime. Instead, they portrayed her as a liar — a point her lawyer Jose Baez conceded — and a callous mother who partied after Caylee’s disappearance.

Lizette Alvarez reported from Clearwater, and Bill Carter from New York. Brian Stelter contributed reporting from New York.

Judge Perry, in a public hearing last year, approved the court clerk’s determination that Casey Anthony was legally indigent. By being declared “indigent” under the law, Casey would become eligible for her legal expenses to be paid by the State of Florida. However, the defense did not request that her attorneys’ fees be paid out of the state’s pocket according to the media sources I reviewed today. (Good summary provided by CBS News.)

One year later, according to Orlando’s WESH-TV, the defense had spent $80,000 and was asking for more. (Story here.)

That was back in March. Who knows what the total is today.

Two thoughts here: first, death penalty cases are expensive to try. You’ve got a guilt phase and if the defense loses there, then you’ve got a penalty phase – where death is debated. Sentencing is a new ball game and there are different witnesses, etc. and with that a new set of expenses.

Second, another good thing coming from the Casey Anthony coverage is the education of the American public on what it means, budget-wise, when an indigent is facing the death penalty. The taxpayers are paying for BOTH SIDES of the case — attorneys’ fees and legal costs. The fact that Baez isn’t being paid by the State of Florida here, nor his death-qualified co-counsel, shouldn’t be considered as what usually happens.

Some states try and cut these costs with Public Defender Offices, some have appointment lists of outside, private attorneys who are eligible to defend death penalty cases. Either way, it’s tax money.

Note from 4love2love : The two lawyers besides Jose Baez working on the case are working pro bono for the defense, meaning, they aren’t being paid. It is possible that monies gained from selling her story, family photos and videos to various news agencies may help pay for Baez’s fees, but that is not verified at this time.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Casey Anthony told a judge Wednesday that her agreement with an attorney who is defending her against accusations she killed her 2-year-old daughter does not allow him the rights to sell her story to collect legal fees.

Prosecutors said they wanted to know if Anthony had given her defense attorney, Jose Baez, the right to sell her story. Prosecutors said such an arrangement could provide grounds for an appeal if she is convicted.

They noted in a court motion that she has limited assets to pay her defense and that such an arrangement could encourage a defense attorney to take decisions that heightened the value of that story — rather than doing what was in the best interests of a client. In such an arrangement, a lawyer could earn money by charging for TV interviews or getting a publishing deal for a book or movie.

“We want this on the record now so that five years from now we’re not back having to retry this,” said Jeff Ashton, an assistant state attorney.

Circuit Judge Stan Strickland ruled that he saw no conflict of interest that would jeopardize Anthony’s trial. He made his decision after a private session with Baez and prosecutors to review the lawyer’s agreement with Anthony.

Baez accused the prosecutors of trying to interfere with his work, adding “I’m trying to defend this case.”

Anthony is facing a first-degree murder charge after her daughter Caylee was found dead last December, months after her disappearance.

Casey Anthony has said previously that prosecutors filed their motion as retaliation because she did not agree to a plea deal for a crime she didn’t commit.

Anthony had told authorities a baby sitter kidnapped Caylee, who disappeared last June. The child’s body was later found in woods near her Orlando home by a utility worker.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Orlando, Fla. — Inside the courtroom, there was jubilation today for Casey Anthony and her defense team. Not only did they manage to avoid a first-degree murder conviction, they also dodged the possibility of a death sentence. However, outside on the courthouse steps, there was a lot of outrage and frustration at the verdict.

“It is not justice. I cannot believe this. How did an injustice like this happen? It is terrible, terrible,” Scott Corfee of Orlando, who sat in court when the verdict was announced, told The Huffington Post.

Randall Weeks, a resident of Miami who drove to the courthouse to hear the verdict, agreed.

“This is the biggest outrage since the O.J. Simpson trial,” Weeks said. “How could they be so blind? Where is justice? Who will pay for her daughter’s death?”

Anthony, 25, was found not guilty of killing her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, today. She was also found not guilty of aggravated child abuse and aggravated manslaughter of a child. But she was convicted on charges of misleading law enforcement.

As news of the verdict spread, angered onlookers swarmed the front of the courthouse. The group began shouting in unison, “We want justice” and chanted, “Justice for Caylee.”

A dozen or so sheriff’s deputies emerged from inside the courthouse and forced the angry crowd back. Officers put up caution tape and stood guard, blocking the courthouse doors. For a brief time, the media was stuck between the protesters and the police, unable to move until the area was secure.

“I am a firm believer in karma. Maybe justice did not get her, but karma will,” Corfee said.

A much more peaceful gathering was being held concurrently on Suburban Drive in Orlando, where Caylee’s remains were found in December 2008. For the second day in a row, hundreds of people made their way into the woods to pay their respects.

“This is the only way I know how to grieve,” said a neighbor of the Anthonys who did not wish to be identified. “We’ll never see little Caylee again. Only the Anthonys know where she has been laid to rest. We have no grave to visit, so what else can we do but come here to pay our respects?”

Casey Anthony will be back in court Thursday for sentencing on four misdemeanor counts of lying to police. Each count carries a maximum sentence of one year in county jail. The judge has the option of sentencing Anthony consecutively or concurrently. Anthony will receive credit for time served in jail since her 2008 arrest, meaning she could walk free.

While Thursday’s outcome is yet to be seen, Weeks and others the Huffington Post spoke with said they will be back on Thursday morning to get their views across regarding Anthony’s sentencing.

“You bet your ass we’ll be back,” Weeks’ friend, Jay Henderson, said. “We’ll all be back to have our voices heard.” Several in the crowd cheered in agreement as he spoke.

Orange County Courthouse

Dozens gather on the court house steps to show their outrage and frustration at the verdict. (Photo: David Lohr)

Pool/Getty ImagesTuesday (July 5, 2011): Casey Anthony reacts to being found not guilty on murder charges.

The day-after stories about the not-guilty verdict for Florida mother Casey Anthony, who was accused of killing her 2-year-old daughter Caylee in a case that has dominated the tabloids and cable news networks, include a clue to what the jurors were thinking.

— CBS News: “They didn’t show us how Caylee died, and that was important,” Russell Hueckler, an alternate juror, said of the prosecution. “No one could answer that.”

Meanwhile, as The Orlando Sentinel reports, “Assistant State Attorney Jeff Ashton on national television this morning said that he was shocked and bitterly disappointed by the jury’s decision to render not guilty verdicts on the major charges in the Casey Anthony case on Tuesday.”

The case continues to be a trending topic on Twitter, where most commenters seem to believe the jury made a mistake.

As for what’s next for Anthony, who is to be sentenced Thursday on the four counts of lying to authorities that she was convicted on, CNN reports that some legal experts say:

“Don’t be surprised if [she] walks out of jail a free woman after her sentencing. … And, they add, there is nothing stopping her from cashing in on book or movie deals — as her acquittal on serious charges now means she is free to profit off her story.”

Others now in the spotlight thanks to the case include Anthony’s attorney, Jose Baez. As the Miami Herald says, he is “a lawyer who came out of no where, was snickered at, laughed at, smeared, attacked and rebuked by the judge. In the end, the 42-year-old attorney who grew up in South Florida, came out on top.”

Casey Anthony‘s imaginary life had more drama and made-up people than a soap opera.

The nearly dozen people whom she created with her ornate lies changed addresses, contracted cancer, got married. One even died in a car crash.

Much of her make-believe life was built around a job as an event planner she claimed she had at Universal Studios. Anthony stuck to that story until police investigating the disappearance of daughter Caylee insisted she take them to her office.

Casey Anthony confidently led police through the gates of Universal Studios, through a lot, into a building and down a corridor until she finally stopped, turned and conceded, “I don’t work here.”

Many of Anthony’s lies were told to her mother, Cindy Anthony, who tearfully recounted how she discovered that each of these people were fictional characters.

The biggest whopper was the babysitter, Zenaida Fernandez-Gonzalez. She was, according to Casey Anthony, a beautiful woman who once dated Casey’s ex-boyfriend, Jeffrey Hopkins.

“Zanny the nanny” was from New York City, had moved to Florida for college and had stayed in the area. She had a mom named Gloria, and moved three times while living in the Orlando area.

Casey Anthony’s World of Make Believe

Casey Anthony gave her mother a detailed description of Zanny’s newest address. She also told her mom when Zanny got her long hair cut short, and mentioned that Zenaida drove a Ford Focus.

When Caylee was taken from her, Casey Anthony introduced a new relative of Zanny’s. She claimed that Zenaida’s sister, Samantha, held her down while Zenaida took Caylee away, saying Casey Anthony was a bad mother.

Zanny also had a roommate named Raquel Ferrell, she told her mother.

Jeff Hopkins, according to Casey Anthony, was once her boyfriend and he had a son named Zachary who was the same age as Caylee’s. The kids often played together. During Caylee’s disappearance, Casey Anthony claimed that she was visiting Hopkins in Jacksonville, Fla., and was trying to rekindle her romance with him.

Hopkins supposedly was wealthy, worked at Nickelodeon, had moved to North Carolina and then back to Florida. Cindy Anthony, Casey’s mother, testified in court that she found a picture of a man and a boy on her daughter’s cellphone identified as Hopkins and filed under “boyfriend.”

Casey Anthony, 25, also told her mother about Hopkins’ mom, a woman supposedly named Jules who had cancer. Cindy Anthony even baked a cake for a Christmas season meeting with Hopkins and his mother, but the meeting was cancelled at the last minute.

When Casey Anthony was being pressured by her mother to produce Caylee, Casey Anthony claimed they were staying in Jacksonville, Fla., for Jules Hopkins‘ surprise wedding.

There was a real Jeff Hopkins but, he told the court, he only attended middle school with Casey Anthony and had run into her in a bar once.

Eric Baker was another person in Casey Anthony’s murky life story. She claimed to her mother that Baker was Caylee’s father, although no one in the Anthony family ever met him.

Cindy Anthony told the court that her daughter claimed that Baker was married and had another child, meaning Caylee had a half-brother.

Cindy Anthony also told the court how she received a distraught phone call from her daughter one day, sobbing that Eric Baker had been killed in a car crash. Casey Anthony claimed to have an obit on Baker, but lost it.

Investigators never tracked down an Eric Baker who was associated with Casey Anthony and it has never been confirmed whether someone named Eric Baker is the father of Caylee. Caylee’s father is still unknown.

While supposedly working at Universal Studios, Casey Anthony had to contend with a boss named Thomas Manly, and had become close friends with a colleague named Juliette Lewis. Lewis had a daughter named Annabelle.

None of them actually existed, but Cindy Anthony heard a fleshed out version of Juliette Lewis. Lewis, she said, was involved in volunteer work.

Casey and her mother, Cindy, went to help Lewis with a fundraiser, but after waiting for about 90 minutes, Lewis didn’t show up, Cindy Anthony testified. Lewis, Casey Anthony told her mother, later moved back to New York.

By KYLE HIGHTOWER

The Associated Press

ORLANDO, Fla. | Casey Anthony’s eyes welled with tears and her lips trembled as the verdict was read once, twice and then a third time: “Not guilty” of killing her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee.

Outside the courthouse, many in the crowd of 500 reacted with anger, chanting, “Justice for Caylee!” One man yelled, “Baby killer!”

In one of the most divisive verdicts since O.J. Simpson was acquitted in 1995 of murdering his ex-wife, Anthony was cleared Tuesday of murder, manslaughter and child-abuse charges after weeks of wall-to-wall TV coverage and armchair-lawyer punditry.

Anthony, 25, was convicted only of four misdemeanor counts of lying to investigators who were looking into the child’s June 2008 disappearance.

Anthony could get up to a year behind bars on each count when she is sentenced Thursday. But since she has been in jail for nearly three years already, she could walk free. Had she been convicted of murder, she could have gotten the death penalty.

After a trial of a month and a half, the Florida 9th Judicial Circuit Court jury took less than 11 hours to reach a verdict in a case that had become a national cable TV sensation.

Prosecutors contended that Anthony — a single mother living with her parents — suffocated Caylee with duct tape because she wanted to be free to hit the nightclubs and spend time with her boyfriend.

Defense attorneys argued that the little girl accidentally drowned in the family swimming pool, and that Anthony panicked and concealed the death because of the traumatic effects of sexual abuse by her father.

State’s Attorney Lawson Lamar said: “We’re disappointed in the verdict today because we know the facts and we’ve put in absolutely every piece of evidence that existed.”

The prosecutor lamented the lack of hard evidence, saying, “This is a dry-bones case. Very, very difficult to prove. The delay in recovering little Caylee’s remains worked to our considerable disadvantage.”

Anthony failed to report Caylee’s disappearance for a month. The child’s decomposed body was eventually found in the woods near her grandparents’ home six months after she was last seen. A medical examiner was never able to establish how she died, and prosecutors had only circumstantial evidence that Caylee had been killed.

“While we’re happy for Casey, there are no winners in this case,” Anthony attorney José Baez said after the verdict. “Caylee has passed on far, far too soon, and what my driving force has been for the last three years has been always to make sure that there has been justice for Caylee and Casey because Casey did not murder Caylee. It’s that simple. And today our system of justice has not dishonored her memory by a false conviction.”

Given the relative speed with which the jury came back, many court-watchers were expecting Anthony to be convicted and were stunned by the outcome.

Because the case got so much media attention in Orlando, jurors were brought in from the Tampa Bay area and sequestered for the entire trial, during which they listened to more than 33 days of testimony and looked at 400 pieces of evidence. Anthony did not take the stand.

The case became a macabre tourist attraction. People camped outside for seats in the courtroom, and scuffles broke out among those desperate to watch the drama unfold.

In closing arguments, prosecutor Linda Drane Burdick showed the jury two side-by-side images. One showed Anthony smiling and partying in a nightclub during the first month Caylee was missing. The other was the tattoo Anthony got a day before law enforcement learned of the child’s disappearance: the Italian words for “beautiful life.”

“At the end of this case, all you have to ask yourself is whose life was better without Caylee?” Burdick asked. “This is your answer.”

Prosecutors also focused heavily on an odor in the trunk of Anthony’s car, which forensics experts said was consistent with the smell of human decay. But the defense argued that the air analysis could not be duplicated, and that maggots in the trunk had come from a bag of trash.

Prosecutors hammered away at the lies Anthony told when the child was missing: She told her parents that she couldn’t produce Caylee because the girl was with a nanny named Zanny — a woman who doesn’t exist; that she and her daughter were spending time with a rich boyfriend who doesn’t exist; and that Zanny had been hospitalized after an out-of-town traffic crash and that they were spending time with her.

Baez contended that the toddler drowned and that when Anthony panicked, her father, a former police officer, decided to make the death look like a murder by putting duct tape on the girl’s mouth and dumping the body in the woods a quarter-mile away. Anthony’s father denied both the cover-up and abuse claims.

The verdict could divide people for years to come, just as the Simpson case did, with some believing Anthony got away with murder.

KYLE HIGHTOWER, Associated Press

Updated 10:35 a.m., Friday, July 1, 2011

Casey Anthony, right looks over papers in the courtroom with her attorney Jose Baez during her murder trial at the Orange County Courthouse Thursday, June 30, 2011 in Orlando, Fla. Casey Anthony, 25, has plead not guilty in the death of her daughter, Caylee, and could face the death penalty if convicted of that charge. Photo: Red Huber, Pool / AP

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The judge in the Florida murder trial of Casey Anthony unexpectedly called an indefinite recess Friday morning so the defense could take depositions of witnesses the prosecution plans to call during its rebuttal case.

Judge Belvin Perry allowed the recess just before the jury was about to be called into the courtroom. Lead defense attorney Jose Baez said the state had failed to disclose all the information a computer expert and forensic anthropologist planned to testify to.

Baez wanted the evidence and witnesses to be excluded, but Perry only gave him the option of taking their depositions.

“Your honor, I will stay here and do the work, and stay here as long as it takes,” Baez said.

Anthony is charged with first-degree murder in the 2008 death of her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee. If convicted of that charge, she could face the death penalty.

The witnesses are on the prosecution’s rebuttal list to challenge testimony offered by witnesses during the case presented by the defense, which rested Thursday. The state planned to call a handful of witnesses and rest again Friday evening.

Judge Perry said Friday morning that he’d planned to give attorneys Saturday to work on their closing arguments, but in lieu of the impromptu break for emergency depositions, would now hold court throughout the weekend, including Sunday. He warned the attorneys to not be wasting time with the late arguments.

“You can take as much time as you want, but we have jurors back there.” Perry said. The judge also said he hoped “this is a real problem and not an imaginary problem.”

While the defense rested Thursday, experts said defense attorneys may have left lingering questions and failed to deliver on promises they made at the outset to explain how the toddler died.

Casey Anthony did not take the stand and the defense did not present concrete evidence that Caylee wasn’t killed, but accidentally drowned.

Her attorneys also never produced any witnesses bolstering the claim made in opening statements that Anthony had acted without apparent remorse in the weeks after her daughter’s death because she had been molested by her father as a child, resulting in emotional problems.

“If you do not at least present facts to support that argument, the jury is going to think you have no credibility,” said Tim Jansen, a former federal prosecutor and criminal defense attorney in Tallahassee. “When you promise the jury something and don’t deliver it you severely handicaps your clients’ case and you undermine your credibility with that jury.”

Instead, their 13-day case primarily focused on poking holes in the prosecution’s contention that Anthony killed Caylee in June 2008 by covering her mouth with duct tape. Prosecutors said the woman dumped Caylee’s body in the woods near her parents’ home and then resumed her life of partying and shopping.

The prosecutors’ case relied on circumstantial and forensic evidence, and it did have holes. They had no witnesses who saw the killing or saw Casey Anthony with her daughter’s body. And there was no certain proof that the child suffocated.

What’s more, prosecution began its rebuttal case late Thursday by continuing to walk through the door opened Wednesday by the defense when it allowed parts of a note Casey Anthony’s father left during a failed suicide attempt to come in. The note included George Anthony asking questions about the death of his granddaughter. Several members of the jury were glued to their monitors as the prosecutor projected the letter for them to read.

“She (Caylee) was found so close to home. Why?” George Anthony wrote at one point in the letter to his family in January 2009.

The defense said in its opening statement that Caylee drowned and that George Anthony, a former police officer, helped cover up the death by making it look like a homicide and dumping the body near their home, where it was found by a meter reader six months later. George Anthony has vehemently denied any involvement in Caylee’s death, the disposal of her body or molesting his daughter.

Florida A&M law professor Karin Moore said she was “confused” throughout the case by the defense’s approach.

“The defense could have attacked George Anthony weeks ago on cross-examination during the state’s case, but waited until late in the trial,” she said. “I think they waited too long to ask the big questions and got themselves in trouble.”

The defense’s final witnesses Thursday included Krystal Holloway, a woman who claims she had an affair with George Anthony that began after Caylee disappeared. She said he told her in November 2008 that Caylee’s death was “an accident that snowballed out of control.” George Anthony has denied having an affair with her but admitted visiting her home on several occasions.

They also recalled George Anthony to ask if he had supplied duct tape he used to put up posters of his granddaughter when she was missing. He said he couldn’t remember.

Baez also asked him if he buried his pets after their deaths in plastic bags wrapped with duct tape. Anthony said he had on some occasions. Prosecutors have said Caylee’s body was disposed of in a similar manner. Under prosecution questioning, he said he had never thrown their carcasses in a swamp.

The prosecution began its rebuttal case with photographs of clothing taken at the Anthony home. Court was adjourned for the day later in the afternoon, with prosecutors set to continue Friday.

Today, the 17 jurors who have spent more than a month listening to witnesses and viewing evidence in Casey Anthony’s first-degree-murder trial will hear closing arguments from the prosecution and defense.

After Chief Judge Belvin Perry reads the lengthy jury instructions, 12 of those jurors — seven women and five men — will leave the courtroom and ultimately determine Anthony’s fate.

There’s no telling how long the jurors will take to deliberate over the seven charges Anthony faces: first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse, aggravated manslaughter of a child and four counts of providing false information to law enforcement.

Where do the jurors go once given instructions?

The alternates return to their hotel. The 12 go to the jury-deliberation room.

No, they will remain in Central Florida. If Anthony is convicted of first-degree murder, they return to the courtroom for the penalty phase even though they didn’t deliberate in the first phase.

Has a foreperson been selected yet?

The jurors will select a foreperson once they begin deliberations.

Where do the jurors actually deliberate?

In a deliberation room that has a conference table, chairs, a dry-erase board, a kitchen and bathroom.

What is the time frame in which they will deliberate? For example, will they deliberate late into the night?

According to court spokeswoman Karen Levey, Perry has indicated jurors will deliberate until the dinner hour. He anticipates 8:30 a.m. until 6 p.m., but that is subject to change, she said.

After they’re ready to return a verdict and Perry is notified, will the judge start the sentencing phase immediately?

If Anthony is found guilty of first-degree murder, there will be an approximate 48-hour break.

When will the jurors’ identities be made public?

Perry issued an order that prevents the jurors’ names from being released. It is unknown whether or when he will lift that order.

But under normal circumstances, the release of the jurors’ names depends on the verdict.

If Anthony is found guilty of a lesser charge than first-degree murder, it will be after the verdict is read. If they find her guilty of first-degree murder, they must stay on for the penalty phase of the trial, which would start about 48 hours after the verdict is read.

Once the jury gives its recommendation to the judge, the jurors’ service is over, and they are free to meet with the media if they choose.

In his opening statement, defense attorney José Baez told jurors that Caylee Marie Anthony wasn’t murdered by her mother as prosecutors allege, but drowned in the family pool.Baez then dropped a series of bombshells by saying his client, Casey Anthony, was sexually abused by her father, George, and that he knew Caylee drowned and disposed of her body. Baez then suggested the meter reader who found Caylee’s remains in December 2008 had more involvement in the case than he let on.

The defense spent two weeks presenting its case before resting Thursday. Even though experts have said her testimony was imperative to the defense case, Casey Anthony did not take the stand.Cindy Anthony ‘claims she searched for ‘chloroform’

Casey Anthony’s mother, Cindy, made a stunning revelation when she testified that she was the one who searched for chloroform on the Internet after looking up information on chlorophyll.

State witnesses had told jurors about high levels of chloroform, which can be deadly, traced to Anthony’s car. Someone — prosecutors suggested it was Casey — used the Anthony family computer to search the Internet for the term “chloroform,” as well as “household weapons” and “neck-breaking.”

Cindy Anthony said she searched for the information initially because she was worried about her dog ingesting backyard leaves. If the jury believes Cindy Anthony’s testimony, it could hurt the state’s argument that the online searches constitute premeditation — which bolsters the first-degree-murder charge against her daughter.

Defense computer forensic investigators acknowledged there was a discrepancy in dates and times in two different reports the state introduced as evidence about the Anthony family computer.

Suicide note

George Anthony delivered emotional testimony when asked about his suicide attempt in January 2009.

Caylee’s grandfather broke down several times on the witness stand Wednesday after he denied abusing his daughter, Casey, and acknowledged he tried to kill himself “to be with Caylee.”

George Anthony drank beer and took pills while he wrote a five-page suicide note inside a Daytona Beach motel. He admitted he would likely not be alive if law enforcement had not intervened.

He also told the jury he purchased a gun as part of a misguided plan to force Casey Anthony’s friends to tell him what happened to his granddaughter.

Spitz attacked Medical Examiner Jan Garavaglia’s autopsy of Caylee’s remains, calling it “shoddy.” He called her decision not to open the skull “a failure.” When he split the skull, he found trace evidence that he thought indicated the skull had been placed with its left side down.

He also proposed a theory that duct tape was placed on Caylee’s remains long after her death — and after her body had decomposed and was skeletonized.

Though Garavaglia classified Caylee’s death as a homicide, Spitz said that determination could not be made based on his examination of the remains and his many years of experience.“I could not tell you what the manner of death was,” said Spitz, who has conducted tens of thousands of autopsies.

Botanist offers time frame for placement of Caylee’s remainsForensic botanist Dr. Jane Bock initially said the shortest amount of time Caylee’s remains could have been in the woods off Suburban Drive was about two weeks. Bock told jurors she visited the woods, reviewed photographs and other evidence.

But during cross-examination, Bock told a prosecutor Caylee’s body could have been placed in the woods far earlier than her initial estimate.

Baez claimed in his opening statement that Casey Anthony was abused by her father, George, and brother, Lee. And though neither confirmed the abuse claims — George Anthony was asked directly and denied it — testimony showed deep-seated family problems.

Lee Anthony cried when he told Baez he didn’t visit Casey Anthony in the hospital when Caylee was born because he was angry with his family. Lee Anthony said that when he inquired about his sister’s pregnancy, their mother told him to “let it go.”

“I was very angry at my mom. I was also angry at my sister — that they didn’t want to include me and didn’t find it important enough to tell me,” Lee Anthony said.

During another round of questioning, Lee Anthony and his mother, Cindy, made conflicting statements about private investigators searching for Caylee’s remains.

Cindy Anthony said she never told the private investigators to go into the woods to search for Caylee’s remains. But Lee Anthony testified he argued with his mother about the issue because it was the first time he had heard his family suggest Caylee was dead and they were looking for her remains.

Expert testimony about findings in trunk of car

Forensic entomologist Tim Huntington seemed to score points for the defense team when he testified there should have been more flies in the trunk of Casey Anthony’s car if Caylee’s body were stored there, as prosecutors say.

Huntington said there would be hundreds, if not thousands, of blowflies in the trunk. But, he said, just one leg of a blowfly was found linked to the trunk.

“The evidence doesn’t make sense any way you look at it to say there was a body in the trunk,” Huntington said.

But Huntington endured a brutal cross-examination, in which he admitted he examined Casey Anthony’s Pontiac about two years after Caylee died, and the car still smelled.

Forensic toxicology expert Dr. Barry Logan raised questions about protocols and quality assurance used by Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists, who generated reports for the state showing air-sample evidence from the trunk had an odor signature indicative of human decomposition.

“I saw no evidence of quality assurance that was relevant to the analysis,” Logan told the jury.

Also, an FBI toxicologist testified that she found no trace of drugs in Caylee’s hair, which could not be tested for chloroform.

Grief expert takes standDefense attorney Dorothy Clay Sims called Florida State University professor and grief-and-trauma expert Sally Karioth to explain how people deal with grief in different ways. The defense used her to explain Casey’s lying and denial after her daughter’s disappearance.
Karioth said young people are often “reluctant grievers” and deal with loss in unusual ways.

Those may include looking like they’re having a great time and spending money they don’t have, she said. Also, she said denial can be an expression of “bereavement overload.”

“Folks who use denial a lot and are faced with profound grief or loss may very well develop what I would call ‘magical thinking,’ ” Karioth said.

Karioth only spoke in general terms and about hypothetical situations resembling Casey’s case. She did not evaluate Casey and said she was unaware of the facts of the case.

Meter reader Roy Kronk

During openings, Baez referred to Roy Kronk, the Orange County meter reader who discovered Caylee’s remains in 2008, as “morally bankrupt.”

When the defense called Kronk to the stand, he acknowledged giving varying accounts of how he found the toddler’s remains Dec. 11, 2008, in woods off Suburban Drive.

Kronk told the jury he poked at the skull with his meter-reader stick, put the rod through the right eye socket and lifted the skull slightly. Kronk said he didn’t realize what it was. When he did, he called his supervisor.

Jurors also heard how Kronk initially came across the remains in August 2008, when he went into the woods to go to the bathroom. At the time, Kronk didn’t know whether it was a real skull, a prop or something ceramic. And Kronk said he didn’t get close enough to inspect because he and his co-workers were preoccupied with a dead rattlesnake.

The defense also called Kronk’s son, Brandon Sparks, who said his father told him in November 2008 he knew where Caylee’s remains were. That statement contradicts what Kronk, who until early that year had been estranged from his son, said on the stand.

bprieto@tribune.com or 407-420-5620. apavuk@tribune.com or 407-420-5735. acolarossi@tribune.com or 407-420-5447.

Cindy Anthony told jurors she was the one who used her family computer to search the internet for “chloroform” in March 2008 — not her daughter Casey Anthony as suggested by prosecutors.

Under cross-examination, when a prosecutor asked the elder Anthony how she could have made the internet searches when employment records showed she was at work, Cindy Anthony said she went home from work early during the days in question.

But on Friday, the state called witnesses who refuted what Anthony claimed — about her being at work and the internet searches.

John Camperlengo, a chief compliance officer for Gentiva Health Services, said company records show someone with Anthony’s password and username logged in and out at her work computer during the week of March 17, 2008.

His testimony showed the records show activity on the work computer during the time where chloroform searches were made at the Anthony family home.

Also disputing Cindy Anthony’s testimony was Sgt. Kevin Stenger, a Sheriff’s Office investigator who said the other keywords she claimed to search at the time of the chloroform research — chlorophyll, sanitizer and bamboo — were not found on the computer.

Orlando attorney Richard Hornsby, who is a legal analyst for WESH-Channel 2 for the Casey Anthony trial, said he has no doubt that the state could charge Cindy Anthony with perjury.

“Will they charge her with perjury is a totally different question,” he said. “Will they? No.”

Witnesses often make misstatements for their loved ones in trials, especially in murder cases, he said.

There are other reasons prosecutors wouldn’t want to charge Anthony with perjury, including appeal reasons. And, if the jury is hung and the case is retried, the state won’t want one of its key witnesses under perjury charges.